Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Pakistani Christians Facing Increasingly More Persecution Within And Without Pakistan

Persecution on religious grounds is increasing day by day in Pakistan.
According to the Forgotten Missionaries International (FMI), Christians are facing religion based persecution which is boosted by various elements. Bruce Allen from the FMI says: “Christians are experiencing much more persecution in Pakistan.”
“There’s a legitimate fear that the government’s not going to look after these Christians, but actually accelerate persecution. They’re going to other countries in Asia…and yet, they’re finding life is very difficult once they arrive in those countries,” Allen says.
Moreover, “In recent months, Pakistan has re-enacted the death penalty. They had a moratorium on that for a number of years, but now under the guise of ‘we want to seek the death penalty for terrorists, they’ve re-enacted it,” he asserts.
“There are Christians in prison–falsely charged under this blasphemy law, and they’re concerned that they could be put to death,” he claims.
What is heart wrenching that owing to the ever worsening persecution, the religious minorities are fleeing by the thousands. However, they’re escaping from one hell to go into another hell.
As data reveals, more than 100,000 Pakistani Christians have left Pakistan and fled to refugee camps in countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines in the past several years. The UNHCR reveals there are currently, more than 1,400 Pakistani asylum-seekers in Sri Lanka, which is comparatively much higher number as that from 102 asylum-seekers in 2012.
Likewise, in March, Thai police booked hundreds of Christians who had fled persecution in Pakistan. Nonetheless, their misery was increased when the Pakistani leaders pushed for their deportation.
Mr. Bruce Allen says it is certainly not easy for these Pakistani asylum-seekers to live in in countries like Thailand or Malaysia. These countries did not sign the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which ensures protection of refugees’ basic human rights. “While it might be easy to get into Thailand as a refugee, once you’re there, you might find that life gets very, very difficult,” he added.
- See more at: http://www.christiansinpakistan.com/pakistani-christians-facing-increasingly-more-persecution-within-and-without-pakistan/#sthash.lMa0HdZN.dpuf

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